als
superseded their necessity. It is certain that over wide districts, now
dependent for productive power wholly on the spring rains, and
consequently quite incapable of sustaining a settled population, there
must have been maintained in Assyrian times some effective
water-system, whereby regions that at present with difficulty furnish a
few months' subsistence to the wandering Arab tribes, were enabled to
supply to scores of populous cities sufficient food for their
consumption.

[Illustration: PLATE 25]

We have not much account of the products of Assyria Proper in early
times. Its dates were of small repute, being greatly inferior to those
of Babylon. It grew a few olives in places, and some spicy shrubs, which
cannot be identified with any certainty. Its cereal crops were good, and
may perhaps be regarded as included in the commendations bestowed by
Herodotus and Strabo on the grain of the Mesopotamian region. The
country was particularly deficient in trees, large tracts growing
nothing but wormwood and similar low shrubs, while others were
absolutely without either tree or bush. The only products of Assyria
which acquired such note as to be called by its name were its silk and
its citron trees. The silk, according to Pliny, was the produce of a
large kind of silkworm not found elsewhere. The citron trees obtained a
very great celebrity. Not only were they admired for their perpetual
fruitage, and their delicious odor; but it was believed that the fruit
which they bore was an unfailing remedy against poisons. Numerous
attempts were made to naturalize the tree in other countries; but up to
the time when Pliny wrote, every such attempt had failed, and the citron
was still confined to Assyria, Persia and Media.

It is not to be imagined that the vegetable products of Assyria were
confined within the narrow compass which the ancient notices might seem
to indicate. Those notices are casual, and it is evident that they are
incomplete: nor will a just notion be obtained of the real character of
the region, unless we take into account such of the present products as
may be reasonably supposed to be indigenous. Now setting aside a few
plants of special importance to man, the cultivation of which may have
been introduced, such as tobacco, rice, Indian corn, and cotton, we may
fairly say that Assyria has no exotics, and that the trees, shrubs, and
vegetables now found within her limits are the same in all probability
as g